The Once-Dead Girl

by Laer Carroll

  Too, her walk was not completely natural, which immediately caught the eye. Bethany had spent a good deal of time practicing pretending to walk while weightless inside her shield. The act was not yet perfectly convincing. But inside a camp with so many heavy weapons she was not risking even her tough extrahuman body.

  One big man with an automatic rifle blocked her path. She walked into him and dismayed he found himself a very movable object in the path of an irresistible one. He flailed backward, almost lost his balance, and angrily jerked his rifle from his shoulder, pointed it at her, and shouted for her to stop.

  When she did not he fired a burst into her back. The only effect was sparks flying when the bullets hit her and reflected in several directions. Shattered fragments hit him in the chest and face. Splinters from a tree hit a woman in the back.

  Both people began screaming. That and the sound of the weapon brought people streaming out of the nearby tents. This included the big boss, Antonio. Bethany hadn’t bother remembering his last name.

  The blue-skinned woman ignored him as she turned back and dealt with first the woman and then the man. She touched each with a small block of plastic or metal, a fake to hide the fact that it was the touch of her hand which worked on them.

  The touch dropped them senseless in their tracks. They were saved only by the woman’s quick reflexes. She lay them on the ground, touched them again, then stood and turned to the boss. Unnoticed by most except a few friends who knelt by them the wounds of the hurt began to heal.

  He was cursing her and trying to grasp her, any part of her. Even her hair resisted his grip. It was as slick and hard as steel. She stood calmly, watching him try unknowingly to handle something that would not notice the weight of a mountain.

  He stopped. He was only making himself more ridiculous. A leader could not afford to do that.

  When the crowd around her was two or three dozen she rose into the air above their reach. She waited for them to quiet down a bit, then held up her hands. The last voices died away.

  Her voice was penetrating though not very loud.

  “You have intruded upon our territory. You will leave the area 100 kilometers outside the center of Pereira. You will be allowed to remove anything except projectile weapons. Those who try will be killed. You have 24 hours to do this. Those remaining will suffer.

  “You will abandon any and all operations inside this perimeter. Efforts to extort money from any entities inside this area will be punished.

  “We are not infallible. You might get away from any of our strictures. For a time. But eventually we will catch you. Those caught will suffer.”

  She slid a foot-long pipe from under her belt. It looked like a simple length of aluminum which might come from any store (and in fact had). But when she pointed it upward and swept it around in a long arc it spat a barrage of blue bolts. The camouflage webbing began to explode and melt. The dripping plastic and metal and webbing rained painfully down on all those below. They began screaming and running away in all directions.

  Sometime during that exodus the alien from outer space disappeared.

  ·

  Bethany was not gone. She patrolled the compound and its satellites for 24 hours, unsleeping, a state she could maintain for days.

  Nor did anyone else get much sleep. For every once in a while the presence of aliens made itself felt.

  In the middle of the afternoon a shrieking like that of a banshee was heard. It seemed to be coming from the north but when the screamer arrived it did so from the west.

  A streak swept across the sky opened by the destruction of the camouflage canopy. Behind it swept a mighty wind that tore most of the tents away from their supports. A fading shriek marked the streak.

  A few who’d caught a glimpse of the streak at the exactly right eye blink said it was an arrow-head like vehicle.

  Some made the connection between that shape and the huge aerospace shuttles which ferried between the Earth and the Lagrange points. Which even the most ignorant knew had been loaded with treasure ore by aliens.

  Were these those same aliens finally making their presence known? Or—scarier—some other aliens possibly less benign than the treasure givers?

  After much argument, a contingent of the bandits loaded several trucks with their property. This included a large cache of weapons and ammunition for them. Then they placed a circle of guards with weapons around the trucks facing outward.

  At sundown everyone was eating, and (Bethany was sure) the trucks were empty of people. A banshee scream burst upon the area. Suddenly a rush of wind heralded the arrival of an arrowhead aircraft. It halted instantly a hundred feet above the trucks. A mighty wind wafted from it, blowing the guards flat upon their faces. Fortunately for them.

  A stream of mighty blue darts struck down from the alien craft. The trucks exploded into flames. Everyone scrambled to shelter, some crawling on hands and knees in their hurry.

  The craft rose straight into the sky. Behind it crashed a sonic boom which shook everyone to their bones.

  As dark came full upon the compound and its satellites lights on poles came on. Bethany let them stay on for two hours. Then suddenly blue darts exploded every light. Insulation on wires melted and burned, trailing lines of light until they burnt themselves out.

  She let them alone till midnight. Except for those who sneaked in ones and threes and fives away from the camp. Guns carried by the sneakers turned hot until they were shed by blistering hands.

  Bethany missed a few of the escapees. As she’d known she would. She was, after all, only one being no matter how super.

  At midnight the banshee shriek jerked awake everyone who’d managed to get to sleep. Then it died away.

  The boss stumbled back to his bed. In the dark he did not notice a figure rise up behind him. He did notice when a hand of steel closed his throat while he felt another such hand tear the clothing from his body. Then he was lost in darkness.

  Bethany tossed the tatters of clothing around the bed. On them she splashed a gallon bucket of pigs’ blood, threw the bucket into a corner, and melted it to a puddle of plastic with a dart.

  An hour later hundreds of miles to the northeast the boss woke in a bush near a camp of bandits who had not migrated. He was scratched all over his naked back, bottom, and legs by being dropped into the bush. Standing around him were bandits pointing guns down at him.

  He thanked God that he was alive. He did not know that Bethany had decided that someone who deserved a thousand horrible deaths served better as a convincing bearer of bad tidings.

  After that the shapechanger let them sleep. She needed them able to leave the camp without killing or hurting the children and their mothers by fatigued fumbling.

  Those who stumbled from the mostly makeshift shelters and beds found an arrowhead craft floating 50 feet above the center of the compound. It was rotating very slowly on its vertical axis. As if inspecting everything below.

  First one then two then more began to walk slowly toward the center of the camp bearing guns of all kinds held above their heads by the barrels. They piled the guns in a jumbled pyramid of metal. It grew taller and taller, shifted and slid into a larger and larger pyramid.

  An hour after the last person had pitched a weapon onto the pile a mighty voice spoke down from the sky.

  “Move away from the weapons. Far away.”

  Everyone who had not done so rushed far away. A few fools crouched behind tree trunks and vehicles and peered at the pile of weapons.

  Quiet fell upon the clearing.

  Above lightning flashed between clouds. The flickers increased in size and frequency. Then more.

  Then a might stroke of lightning crashed down, blinding all who saw it. When their sight returned the weapons were a molten shifting puddle.

  ·

  There were always those who tried to sneak weapons away as the day progressed and everyone departed the site. Some congratulated themselves on their guile. And a few did indeed succe
ed. But most felt a cool touch on the back of their necks and nothing else, until they woke hours later, naked, miles away, with both hands badly blistered.

  Bethany kept track of most of the three hundred or so former bandits for several days. Especially the groups which included kids. Eventually she visited each group.

  Such was one which had taken up residence in a small village far outside the perimeter the “alien” had prescribed. One day the blue-skinned alien walked into the run-down house they had rented.

  The adults cringed away from her, pulling the children with them or pushing them behind them. They looked fearfully at her.

  Except the children, who ranged in size from infants to about ten years old. They were curious. Their memories of fear had faded and they’d found that none of them were hurt.

  She lifted a chair which had been knocked over by its occupant and set it near one wall. She sat, crossed her orange and blue pants legs, and just looked at them.

  Finally a stout older woman took a step forward.

  “Well, are you going to sit there forever, scaring the children, and trying to scare the rest of us?”

  The alien smiled. Once you got past the blue skin she was really quite beautiful. The slanted violet eyes, her most noticeable feature, were large and had long lashes.

  “No. I’m here to give you inoculations against disease. Those of you who will accept them, anyway. Don’t worry,” she said to the children. “They won’t hurt even the tiniest bit. But you’ll never, ever get sick. Have you been sick? Remember what that was like?”

  A little boy stepped from around his mother. “I got to stay home from school.”

  “You had school?”

  The older woman said, “We made one.”

  “First, though, I see some problems. How,” she said to a man with a bandage on one hand, “did you get that?”

  “At my job. I scalded it while running water to wash dishes. I work at a restaurant.”

  “Show me. I’ll fix it.”

  Hesitantly he came forward. It must be quite painful if he took the chance of approaching this terrible being. Or maybe he just had courage.

  The alien took a block of pale silver metal from a pocket, a prop not a real device. She said, “This will remove the pain. First. Then it will fix that. Let’s get this bandage off.”

  She touched his wrist near the bandage. He sighed in sudden relief. Then she unpinned the closure to the bandage and unbound it.

  The whole hand was red and swollen. It had become infected also. She quickly applied local healing. She also commanded his body toward perfect health.

  “Put a clean new bandage over it till this time tomorrow. It will be healed by then.”

  Slowly, then with less reluctance, the rest of the former bandits approached. Finally even the most hesitant of the parents let their children receive an “inoculation” from the small miracle machine.

  The alien stood.

  “You may think you have undergone calamity. But you will find you have been very lucky. None of you will ever get sick again. You’ll find you have more energy, you think better, and hurts will heal much faster. You will live longer. You will be stronger than before. A better life is ahead of you.

  “Goodbye.”

  A little girl rushed up to her and grabbed a hand.

  “Will I see you again?”

  Bethany’s words seemed to come to her from someone else.

  “Perhaps. If you study and work and, most of all, love well, one day you will look in a mirror and you will see me.”

  The alien walked quickly out the door. It would not do for anyone to see a magical creature cry.

  ·

  A few days later Bethany sent an email to Sandrine, sending a copy to Schlesinger.

  Colombia problem resolved. I commissioned M.Y. Security to handle the problem, paid $5000 for initial expenses. However, some other agency resolved the problem. Wild stories about attacks by blue aliens are circulating. I suspect a rival gang running a sham to scare opponents. Going to next trouble spot.

  A few hours later she sent an email to Bethany using her Sandrine email account, with a copy to Schlesinger.

  Have you asked for $5K refund? If not, don’t. MYS very able & we want to keep them happy.

  Bethany replied: Agreed. Meant to ask U bout that missed up.

  Chapter 9 - New Beginnings

  Just after Easter Bethany was having lunch in her apartment and mulling over the acceptances she’d received from the colleges and universities to which she’d applied. Mostly she was wondering if she should extend her gap year, or settle in to the serious business of choosing one to approve.

  Her info slate chimed. The tone was the one she’d assigned to Important News Alert.

  She reached over to the slate where it rested near the edge of her small dining table and picked it up. The face lit up.

  Mars Expedition in Trouble read the headline. The story itself was short. The spacecraft bearing an international collection of scientists and astronauts had been struck by a rare meteorite large enough to penetrate the several layers of protection. Two of the crew had been hurt. One was in serious condition, her life in jeopardy.

  So were the lives of everyone else. The strike had holed the fuel tank. Before its automatic sealers had done their job much of the fuel had been lost. The craft was in danger of being unable to go into orbit around Mars. It might curve around the planet and head further into space.

  Beth’s immediate reaction was to assume her bubble and fly to Mars. She could heal the injured and shuttle the crew back to Earth. It would take two trips for that many people, but that was not a problem. Travel time for her bubble would be less than an hour.

  But questions arose. How would she get in and out of the craft, for instance?

  She began reading up on the expedition, determining first just where it was and how much time she had before the craft needed to begin course changes to put it into orbit. Then she re-read the news report. It had been automatically expanded as more info came in from the expedition. This included more details on the injuries .

  She took a deep breath and let it out. She had several hours, maybe even days, before she would be forced to act.

  Several hours later she knew the expedition spacecraft in much detail, both as it had been and after being damaged. She also knew that Prince Enterprises, the main contractor for the expedition, was assembling a rescue vehicle.

  It was completely robotic and so would not need life support. More importantly it could accelerate and decelerate much harder than if a fragile human rode it.

  Even now a team headed by the president of Prince Enterprises Ana Prince was planning the rescue. It was meeting at this very moment.

  This was the crucial fact in a possible plan to rescue the expedition members. Bethany thought a bit, then got very busy.

  From her closet she selected and donned an outfit of Casual but Serious Flunky: dark blue dress and dress jacket, light blue blouse, black slippers with a mild heel. She glanced in a mirror, coiled her hair into a bun and assumed a mid-thirties plain face seemingly lightly made up. She selected a matching Boring Functional Purse, loaded it with her info slate and other items, and slung it over her shoulder.

  A careful look around the area surrounding her balcony and she vanished. Faint from high overhead came down the rolling thunder of an object smashing air aside on its way to space.

  Fifteen minutes later she arced down toward New York City, the location of Prince Enterprise headquarters. In the lobby of the tall building in the Upper West Side she rushed to the security guard at the high counter opposite the rotating glass doors.

  “Excuse me I’m late for the meeting.” Bethany took a deep breath and visibly slowed her breathing. “I just got here from Paris, you’d think it would take less time, to get through security, than to fly across, the Atlantic, where is it? ”

  “Miss, what meeting was that?”

  “The Mars rescue meeting, what other
meeting is there?”

  “It’s in the Executive Briefing Room on the top floor. Here, if you’ll fill out the fields on this info slate while I check the attendance list for that meeting...”

  She interrupted him by slapping her purse, opening its flap, and pulling out her cell phone as if she’d received a call. She stepped a few feet away to let someone waiting behind her talk to the guard, snapped it open, and put it to her ear.

  Moments later she walked quickly to and through the rotating doors. It took her several minutes in this busy part of the city to find an unobserved spot where she could vanish.

  The building was a modest 30 floors surrounded by taller newer buildings, not at all what you’d expect for the HQ of a conglomerate worth many billions of dollars. Atop it she didn’t bother with checking for workers idly looking out of windows however. She came down by the door into the building, unshielded, opened the door, and stepped quickly inside. She took the stairs down to the top floor.

  The carpet in the hallway was dark green and deep, the walls beige, the doors to various rooms glossy dark brown. She found the golden plaque for the Executive Briefing Room and stopped to listen at the closed double door.

  An earnest discussion was going on behind them. She took a deep breath and used her shapechanger powers to calm herself. Then she opened one of the doors.

  A long oval table in a spare but expensive room was revealed. The table dominated the room. At one end was a large flat screen displaying complicated diagrams and lots of numbers. A dumpy young man was holding forth about something on it. He ceased speaking and looked at her.

  So did all those seated around the table. And Ana Prince, leaning on the wall at the end of the room opposite the speaker .

  She was instantly recognizable. Her pictures had been in newspapers, newsblogs, magazines, and blogazines as long as Bethany could remember, tall, slender, long curly black hair spilling down her front, fashionable work wear, and a shockingly beautiful face.

  Beth’s immediate impression was of an elf who’d stepped out of a fantasy movie into modern wear.

  “Ms. Prince? An urgent confidential message. About the Mars, ahh...”